Landmarks Preservation Commission March 6, 2001, Designation List 325 LP-2088 (Former) SUFFOLK TITLE AND GUARANTEE COMPANY BUILDING, 90-04 161 st Street (aka 90-02-- 90-04 161 51 Street, 160-02 -- 160-10 90th Avenue and 90-01 -- 90-03 160th Street), Queens Built 1929; Dennison & Hirons, architects. Landmark Site: Borough of Queens Tax Map Block 9757, Lot 23. On January 30, 2001, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the (Former) Suffolk Title and Guarantee Company Building, and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 2). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Three witnesses spoke in favor of designation, including representatives of the Historic Districts Council and the Society for the Architecture of the City. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. The Commission has received statements in support of designation from the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, the Friends of Terra Cotta, and the Borough Historian of Queens, Stanley Cogan. Summary Constructed in 1929, the (Former) Suffolk Title and Guarantee Company Building maintains a commanding presence near the business center of Jamaica, Queens. Designed by the distinguished architectural firm of Dennison & Hirons which was known for its bank buildings, this eight-story structure was built at a time of tremendous business prosperity and building activity. The architects used the Art Deco style enhanced with colorful terra­ cotta ornament to create a modem and distinctive headquarters for the Long Island­ based firm, which was organized in 1925 to insure real estate titles, guarantee mortgages, and make loans. Echoing the dominant shapes of the prominent Art Deco skyscrapers of the period in this smaller building, the architects emphasized the verticality of the structure with continuous masonry piers and a variety of setbacks near the top. This arrangement, along with the brightly-colored, terra-cotta panels by noted sculptor Rene Chambellan that are strategically applied to the crown and the second story, make this a truly unique building in downtown Jamaica, and a rare example of the skyscraper style applied to small buildings outside of Manhattan. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS Development of the Area 1 valuation in Queens County.5 Many small-scale Jamaica, one of the oldest settlements within the commercial buildings were erected in Jamaica at this current boundaries of New York City, developed into time, as well as several major office and commercial the leading commercial center of Queens County by structures, including the Jamaica Chamber of 1900 and continues to be the largest and most densely­ Commerce Building on 161" Street (1928-29, George populated neighborhood in central Queens. The Dutch W. Conable) and the J. Kurtz & Sons Store on Jamaica purchased the land in Jamaica from the J ameco Indians A venue ( 1931, Allrnendiger & Schlendorf, a designated in 1655. The following year, Governor Peter New York City Landmark). When the Suffolk Title Stuyvesant granted a charter to the town, originally and Guarantee Company chose Jamaica for its new known as Rusdorp. headquarters building in 1929, this was the most Following the transfer of power from the Dutch to prosperous commercial section of the borough. It was the English in 1664, Rusdorp was renamed Jamaica, also a center for banking and insurance in Queens, with after the original inhabitants of the region. Queens several other banks and title guarantee companies County (incorporating present-day Queens and Nassau located on the same block. Counties) was chartered in 1683 and Jamaica was one of the three original governing units established there Suffolk Title and Guarantee Company6 (along with Newtown and Flushing). Outside the town The Suffolk Title and Guarantee Company was center, Jamaica was largely an area of farms and founded in 1925 for the purpose of insuring property pastures. The rural village was officially incorporated titles, making loans on bonds and mortgages, and by New York State in 1814. selling guaranteed mortgages. The company, with Jamaica's central location in Queens County, and businessman Willard Baylis as president, was the extensive transportation network that developed in organized in Suffolk County, but had offices in the town during the nineteenth century, transformed the Manhattan, Long Island City, Mineola, and Riverhead, village into the major commercial center for Queens as well as Jamaica, Queens. Its slogan was "A Title County and much of eastern Long Island. The arrival Company that Knows Long Island." Established during of the railroads in the 1830s began this evolution.2 The the period of intense business activity of the nineteen­ rail lines connected Jamaica with other sections of twenties, the company expanded rapidly, and by 1927 Queens county, Brooklyn, eastern Long Island, and the had acquired another well-known title company, Clarke ferries to New York City. Jamaica's farmland was & Frost. By 1928, the firm needed larger quarters to soon being subdivided into streets and building lots, and accommodate its increasing business and began many houses were erected. acquisition of this site near the commercial center of By the tum of the century, Jamaica's importance as Jamaica, Queens. They hired the architectural firm of a commercial area became evident in the impressive Dennison & Hirons, known for its important bank buildings constructed on Jamaica A venue, most notably buildings in the newly-popular Art Deco style, to create the Beaux-Arts Jamaica Savings Bank Building (161- a distinctive headquarters and unique symbol for this 02 Jamaica Avenue, 1897-98, Hough & Duell),3 and growing business. the neo-Italian Renaissance Queens County Register Office (161-04 Jamaica Avenue, 1898, A.S. Dennison & Hirons Macgregor, a designated New York City Landmark). After Jamaica was incorporated into the Borough of Ethan Allen Dennison (1881-1954) Queens and became a part of New York City on Frederic Charles Hirons (1883-1942) January 1, 1898, additional transportation improvements brought increasing numbers of people.4 Ethan Allen Dennison, born in New Jersey, studied As a result, the population of Jamaica quadrupled architecture at the Godfrey Architectural Preparatory between 1900 and 1920. School and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He During the 1920s, when the major mass transit began his career in the office of Trowbridge & links were in place and private automobile ownership Livingston in New York in 1905,joining with Frederic was growing at an extraordinary rate, Jamaica Hirons to form the partnership of Dennison & Hirons in experienced its major expansion as a commercial 1910. Their firm continued until 1929, including the center. By 1925, lots on Jamaica Avenue between one year (1913) during which they were joined by 160'11 Street and 168'11 Street had the highest assessed Percy W. Darbyshire, creating the firm of Dennison, 2 Hirons & Darbyshire. Dennison won the Medal of The terra cotta used in these buildings was similar Honor of the Society of Diploma Architects of France to that featured by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company in and was a member of the Beaux Arts Society of New a special issue of their magazine devoted to the work of Yark, as well as the American Society of the French this architectural firm.7 This article included an Legion of Honor. After the dissolution of the firm of explanation of Dennison & Hirons' method for Dennison & Hirons, Dennison continued to practice producing the colored terra-cotta panels used on their architecture in New Yark as the head of Ethan Allen buildings. One-quarter scale models were created and Dennison & Associates. Much of his later work was in painted according to their designs. These were then Connecticut, where he lived, and in 1940 he moved his mounted on the building at their exact locations, so that firm to that state. the colors could be adjusted according to the differing Frederic Charles Hirons was born in England but light exposures. After these models were finalized, the moved as a child to Massachusetts with his family. He Polychrome Department of the Atlantic Terra Cotta worked as a draftsman in the Boston office of Herbert Company would create glazes to achieve the desired Hale from 1898 until 1901 when he began to study shades. In this way Dennison & Hirons were able to architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of produce colorful ornament which has remained visually Technology. In 1904, he won the Rotch traveling stunning for many years. scholarship, and went to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He won the Paris Prize in 1906, enabling Rene Chambellan (1893-1955)8 him to continue his studies and travel in Europe through Rene Paul Chambellan became a noted 1909. Hirons was always interested in drawing and the architectural sculptor and model-maker whose education of young students. He led his own atelier for sculpture, bas-reliefs, and panels were executed in a several years after his return from Europe, taught number of materials, including bronze, stone, and terra architecture at Columbia University, was a founder of cotta. Born in Union City, New Jersey, he was the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, and served as educated at New York University (1912-14), and the president of the Beaux Arts Society of Architects. He Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (1914-17), and Ecole was named a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor Julian (1918-19) in Paris and was a student of the in recognition of his services for architectural sculptor Solon Borglum. He served as a sergeant in the education. In 1929 Hirons formed a partnership with U.S. Army in France in 1917-19. After returning to the F.W. Mellor from Philadelphia for two years, and then United States, Chambellan worked with Raymond practiced under his own name until 1940.